>FEDERALIST No. 61 (Hamilton)                                  .



The Same Subject Continued

(Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of

 Members)

From the New York Packet.

Tuesday, February 26, 1788.



HAMILTON



To the People of the State of New York:

THE more candid opposers of the provision respecting elections,

 contained in the plan of the convention, when pressed in argument,

 will sometimes concede the propriety of that provision; with this

 qualification, however, that it ought to have been accompanied with

 a declaration, that all elections should be had in the counties

 where the electors resided. This, say they, was a necessary

 precaution against an abuse of the power. A declaration of this

 nature would certainly have been harmless; so far as it would have

 had the effect of quieting apprehensions, it might not have been

 undesirable. But it would, in fact, have afforded little or no

 additional security against the danger apprehended; and the want of

 it will never be considered, by an impartial and judicious examiner,

 as a serious, still less as an insuperable, objection to the plan.

 The different views taken of the subject in the two preceding

 papers must be sufficient to satisfy all dispassionate and

 discerning men, that if the public liberty should ever be the victim

 of the ambition of the national rulers, the power under examination,

 at least, will be guiltless of the sacrifice.

If those who are inclined to consult their jealousy only, would

 exercise it in a careful inspection of the several State

 constitutions, they would find little less room for disquietude and

 alarm, from the latitude which most of them allow in respect to

 elections, than from the latitude which is proposed to be allowed to

 the national government in the same respect. A review of their

 situation, in this particular, would tend greatly to remove any ill

 impressions which may remain in regard to this matter. But as that

 view would lead into long and tedious details, I shall content

 myself with the single example of the State in which I write. The

 constitution of New York makes no other provision for LOCALITY of

 elections, than that the members of the Assembly shall be elected in

 the COUNTIES; those of the Senate, in the great districts into

 which the State is or may be divided: these at present are four in

 number, and comprehend each from two to six counties. It may

 readily be perceived that it would not be more difficult to the

 legislature of New York to defeat the suffrages of the citizens of

 New York, by confining elections to particular places, than for the

 legislature of the United States to defeat the suffrages of the

 citizens of the Union, by the like expedient. Suppose, for

 instance, the city of Albany was to be appointed the sole place of

 election for the county and district of which it is a part, would

 not the inhabitants of that city speedily become the only electors

 of the members both of the Senate and Assembly for that county and

 district? Can we imagine that the electors who reside in the remote

 subdivisions of the counties of Albany, Saratoga, Cambridge, etc.,

 or in any part of the county of Montgomery, would take the trouble

 to come to the city of Albany, to give their votes for members of

 the Assembly or Senate, sooner than they would repair to the city of

 New York, to participate in the choice of the members of the federal

 House of Representatives? The alarming indifference discoverable in

 the exercise of so invaluable a privilege under the existing laws,

 which afford every facility to it, furnishes a ready answer to this

 question. And, abstracted from any experience on the subject, we

 can be at no loss to determine, that when the place of election is

 at an INCONVENIENT DISTANCE from the elector, the effect upon his

 conduct will be the same whether that distance be twenty miles or

 twenty thousand miles. Hence it must appear, that objections to the

 particular modification of the federal power of regulating elections

 will, in substance, apply with equal force to the modification of

 the like power in the constitution of this State; and for this

 reason it will be impossible to acquit the one, and to condemn the

 other. A similar comparison would lead to the same conclusion in

 respect to the constitutions of most of the other States.

If it should be said that defects in the State constitutions

 furnish no apology for those which are to be found in the plan

 proposed, I answer, that as the former have never been thought

 chargeable with inattention to the security of liberty, where the

 imputations thrown on the latter can be shown to be applicable to

 them also, the presumption is that they are rather the cavilling

 refinements of a predetermined opposition, than the well-founded

 inferences of a candid research after truth. To those who are

 disposed to consider, as innocent omissions in the State

 constitutions, what they regard as unpardonable blemishes in the

 plan of the convention, nothing can be said; or at most, they can

 only be asked to assign some substantial reason why the

 representatives of the people in a single State should be more

 impregnable to the lust of power, or other sinister motives, than

 the representatives of the people of the United States? If they

 cannot do this, they ought at least to prove to us that it is easier

 to subvert the liberties of three millions of people, with the

 advantage of local governments to head their opposition, than of two

 hundred thousand people who are destitute of that advantage. And in

 relation to the point immediately under consideration, they ought to

 convince us that it is less probable that a predominant faction in a

 single State should, in order to maintain its superiority, incline

 to a preference of a particular class of electors, than that a

 similar spirit should take possession of the representatives of

 thirteen States, spread over a vast region, and in several respects

 distinguishable from each other by a diversity of local

 circumstances, prejudices, and interests.

Hitherto my observations have only aimed at a vindication of the

 provision in question, on the ground of theoretic propriety, on that

 of the danger of placing the power elsewhere, and on that of the

 safety of placing it in the manner proposed. But there remains to

 be mentioned a positive advantage which will result from this

 disposition, and which could not as well have been obtained from any

 other: I allude to the circumstance of uniformity in the time of

 elections for the federal House of Representatives. It is more than

 possible that this uniformity may be found by experience to be of

 great importance to the public welfare, both as a security against

 the perpetuation of the same spirit in the body, and as a cure for

 the diseases of faction. If each State may choose its own time of

 election, it is possible there may be at least as many different

 periods as there are months in the year. The times of election in

 the several States, as they are now established for local purposes,

 vary between extremes as wide as March and November. The

 consequence of this diversity would be that there could never happen

 a total dissolution or renovation of the body at one time. If an

 improper spirit of any kind should happen to prevail in it, that

 spirit would be apt to infuse itself into the new members, as they

 come forward in succession. The mass would be likely to remain

 nearly the same, assimilating constantly to itself its gradual

 accretions. There is a contagion in example which few men have

 sufficient force of mind to resist. I am inclined to think that

 treble the duration in office, with the condition of a total

 dissolution of the body at the same time, might be less formidable

 to liberty than one third of that duration subject to gradual and

 successive alterations.

Uniformity in the time of elections seems not less requisite for

 executing the idea of a regular rotation in the Senate, and for

 conveniently assembling the legislature at a stated period in each

 year.

It may be asked, Why, then, could not a time have been fixed in

 the Constitution? As the most zealous adversaries of the plan of

 the convention in this State are, in general, not less zealous

 admirers of the constitution of the State, the question may be

 retorted, and it may be asked, Why was not a time for the like

 purpose fixed in the constitution of this State? No better answer

 can be given than that it was a matter which might safely be

 entrusted to legislative discretion; and that if a time had been

 appointed, it might, upon experiment, have been found less

 convenient than some other time. The same answer may be given to

 the question put on the other side. And it may be added that the

 supposed danger of a gradual change being merely speculative, it

 would have been hardly advisable upon that speculation to establish,

 as a fundamental point, what would deprive several States of the

 convenience of having the elections for their own governments and

 for the national government at the same epochs.

PUBLIUS.





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